Lovely, by the way

Last week, JG and I went to the last of the streak of summer weddings, which was to take place in a very cool restaurant. In Brooklyn. During rush hour. On a Friday.

Cue harried, crazy-eyed expression.

We didn’t make it any easier for ourselves. JG had plans to play golf with his dad the week before, and my in-laws agreed to watch Ted for us while we were in New York. So, JG drove Ted up to the Poconos and stayed for a few days while I stayed home. I would have gone to work had I not been stricken with a random case of whooping cough — it must have been my consumptive constitution — but instead, I ate chicken noodle soup every day and lost my voice. It was difficult to make the decision that we were, in fact, attending this wedding, but I felt strongly that we should be there. The bride is a close family friend; her mom and my mom were in each other’s weddings almost 40 years ago, and my sister and the bride are in each other’s weddings, both this year. I’m not technically related to the bride, but it felt like it. Come Thursday, I was alive enough to push for my case. It was just one night, I argued; I could rest for the rest of the weekend. JG reluctantly took me at my word, and we executed The Plan.

From the Poconos, JG drove to his parents’ regular house in northern New Jersey and took a commuter train to New York City. Meanwhile, a friend drove me to the Amtrak station in in Wilmington, Delaware, so that I could take a train to meet JG at Penn Station. Fortunately, both of our trains were on time, and we were able to loiter around the station for about a half hour, awesomely incongruous in our wedding garb. Then came the next leg of the trip on the subway, which worried me because of the time of day. Would there be frequent trains? Would they be jammed with people? Would there be an accident on our line? As is usually the case with my fretting, everything went swimmingly. We had no problem elbowing our way onto an express train under the Hudson, and we popped up at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge. The air was cool as we walked on the cobblestone sidewalks toward the venue. My cough was down, and we were on time. Excellent.

The restaurant didn’t open for the wedding until a half hour before the ceremony, so JG suggested that we pop into a used book store to wait. I am never one to turn down a book store, so we went into a shop with very tall ceilings, vintage post cards, and sheet music for old-school show tunes. I wandered through the stacks, looking for rare Madeleine L’Engle novels (they ended up being at the very tippy top of the shelves, 2 stories up), and I noticed a man reading in an armchair. Upon closer inspection, I realized that it was my dad! My parents were in the book store, biding their time before the wedding! “Hi, Dad!” I said, brightly, or as brightly as was possible with a hoarse throat. All four of us had a good chuckle about meeting at the book store. It was too funny.

Oh, and the wedding was lovely, by the way. I’m so glad we made it.

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